Top Vancouver developer teams up with former Toronto head planner for massive national project to build rental

The latest from the man who is building both Vancouver House (high-end, sold offshore, unusual building next to Granville Bridge) and, someday, a mix of social and market housing on the Stanley/New Fountain Gastown site — he has formed a non-profit that will be dedicated to building rental, tapping in to the country’s big pension funds and getting some help from CMHC (unless what as yet).

Obviously, there’s a lot of reaction to this, since Gillespie’s company Westbank is currently best known in the city for building very expensive projects and marketing at least some of the units through the company’s overseas offices.

I should note that some have privately messaged me that Gillespie’s pitch might not be the worst idea since, if the federal government is about to pour money into housing, those who have experience building thousands of units at a fairly rapid clip might be able to do the job more efficiently than non-profits, which are just learning the development game.

Here was one analysis of the Westbank idea:

there is some speculation they may want to vertically integrate the construction and maintenance/management of the units once built. If that’s their route, they will be hiring people on the nonprofit side to start planning their submissions. There is likely an air that there will be a long surge of government investment into housing again, and existing non-profits are already overloaded. There is room to grow in this market, and it seems likely Westbank is wanting to get in on it. I expect some of their competitors may be planning similar moves.

I do wonder whether, given that there are finite housing dollars, some will worry that the more that goes to a P3-type operation, the less will be available for the longstanding non-profits. I await comments on that.

On a side note, the reason I started looking into this is I had heard that Gillespie was creating a non-profit for housing, but I had heard that it was mainly so that he could bid on a current call in Vancouver for proposals to build rental housing that will rent for less than market rates.

I see from the paperwork here below that the society was created last October. Conspiracy theorists may note that the lawyer involved, Neil Kornfeld, is the same person acting for Beedie Living on the 105 Keefer site. However, I believe that’s just because he’s seen as a go-to real-estate lawyer, rather than any real link.